are you performing or being present?

You know how you sometimes find old videos on your phone that you completely forgot about? 

I found this video that I recorded over a year ago while cleaning out my phone.

I'd been struggling with this thing I couldn't even name at the time. But really, it was the battle between perception value and authenticity.

I was exploring this tension between who I actually am and who I think I needed to be. 

The way we edit ourselves, curate our responses, manage impressions as ambitious women who've had to "figure it out".

All those subtle calculations we make before we speak or act.

I had this moment of clarity sitting in my car. About voice - both literal and metaphorical. 

How I'd been so focused on landing the "right" tone that I'd lost track of my actual tone 

Never posted it. Looked too raw, too unrefined, but the insight was real.

Here's what I noticed: most of us are carrying this invisible weight of constant calibration. 

We've mastered the art of managing how we come across, but somewhere along the way, we lost touch with who we actually are underneath all that careful curation.

The cost? We're exhausted from performing appropriateness instead of embodying presence.

You know this feeling. That split second before you speak where you calculate how it'll land. The way you dim your energy when it feels "too much." 

The careful dance of being successful but not threatening, confident but not arrogant, powerful but still palatable.

This video captures the moment I realized I'd been trying so hard to hit the "right" notes that I'd forgotten what my natural voice even sounds like. 

What if the very thing you've been editing out is exactly what makes you alluring?

Your Holy Hot Girl™ Coach, 

Monique